“Bad governors sign bad laws. Terrible governors sign bad laws even when they know they shouldn’t.”

In 2023, when Mr. Little signed the law targeting transgender children, he said, “… as policymakers we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children.” Pickens, who was born in Pocatello and now owns a Boise-based law firm, said Republican politics is hurting Idaho kids:

“Mr. Little will interfere with parents’ medical decisions when it’s the divisive, anti-freedom bill of the day from the Idaho GOP’s unhinged Chair Dorothy Moon. If you want a lesson in hypocrisy, look at the years that Democratic legislators tried to require a religious sect in Idaho to get medical treatment for their children who die painfully of treatable ailments such as appendicitis or respiratory infections. Why not interfere with parents whose medical decisions are actually killing their kids? Why only interfere with parents who seek treatment that doctors recommend?

Instead of helping kids, Idaho far-right Republican lawmakers only help their party leaders. If that means transgender kids will be more likely to attempt suicide, they don’t care. If that means painful, preventable deaths for kids unlucky enough to be born into a religious sect that hates modern medicine, so be it.

Judging by the legislation they write, Idaho Republican leaders don’t care about kids. Their anti-abortion fervor that endangers the lives of Idaho women means they don’t care about adults either. Since the transgender law comes with a threat to imprison doctors for 10 years, they want to put a punctuation mark on it all.

Judging by what Governor Little lets become law, Republican leaders don’t care a bit about freedom.“

(For a sobering look at the results of Idaho’s religious medical exemption law, read “Idaho Religious Exemption Law: Unneeded death and suffering to children.”)

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Pickens made the following statement:

“I want to thank Governor Little for announcing he’s not running for governor because he wouldn’t sign these terrible bills if he were listening to the thousands of people who begged him not to sign these laws. Little has no fight left in him and he won’t even stand up to the anti-freedom forces in the Idaho Republican Party that lets a few rigid, angry and mean voices dictate the agenda simply because they are frightened of them.

Good bye and good riddance, Mr. Little. You have missed your chance to lead with courage and dignity and instead you are leaving with a whimper – the dying gasps of the liberty we took for granted.

The list of repellent laws is long and consequences of Mr. Little timid leadership are already harming the lives of Idaho people. Doctors are leaving the state in droves for fear of being prosecuted for treating pregnant women. Businesses will find it much harder to compete for talent with other states that don’t paint targets on members of the LGBTQIA community. And don’t forget that Mr. Little still hasn’t let us know what—in real time—he is doing to address the dangerous, disastrous and disgusting racist attacks on collegiate athletes last month on a downtown Coeur d’Alene street.

So, thank you, Mr. Little, for not running again. You’ve done too much already.”

Pickens is a mother, a business owner, and multi-generational Idahoan who left the Idaho Republican Party when it became clear that the party was choosing to pursue dangerous policies that would attack freedom, target unpopular groups for political gain, and threaten our democracy.

xxx

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“I apologize to the NCAA players, staff, and supporters of the Utah Utes who were targeted and threatened by an unforgivable racist attack this week in Coeur d’Alene. I extend my apology as well to the players of UC-Urvine who were also made to feel threatened and sought safe harbor outside of the Coeur d’Alene. I apologize to the city of Spokane and to the organizers of the NCAA tournament.

Today, I declare an end to the days where racists and others who share ideologies based on hate and bigotry feel at home in Idaho. You are unwelcome. It may be your right to fill your heart with malice and hatred, but it is an American right to live a life free of tyranny and fear. 

In the short-term, I am allocating as many resources as it takes to hunt down, identify, and prosecute the people responsible for this racist attack. Longer term, we will review Idaho laws and make them as punitive as necessary to dissuade this kind of public attack. Further, we will work with the NCAA to make sure no team ever has to feel unsafe traveling freely in America. Someday, it is my goal that people think of Idaho when they think of what it looks like to stand up to and defeat hate-filled ideologies and the people who would terrorize their neighbors.

Let me be clear, my office and most Idahoans consider any attempt to bully or belittle or harass someone based on their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or religion to be reprehensible and criminal.

Public displays of racism, or the malicious targeting of any group for whatever malign bigoted purpose, will be a thing of the unfortunate past.

Today, I say “go away” to the racists and haters. Today, I say, “go to prison” to the racists and haters who terrorize their neighbors.”

–My name is Terri Pickens and I am running to be Idaho’s next governor. Like you I am tired of the mealy-mouthed platitudes of our current governor who is convinced that he has to placate far-right, anti-freedom extremists. Appeasement does not work. What works is a serious, courageous, transparent campaign to stamp out the forces of hate who are now terrorizing Idaho communities with impunity. Under my watch, Idaho will earn a reputation for true freedom, true liberty, and become a beacon for human rights. I am not bullied or confused by the far-right’s embrace of hatred. I am not deterred in my commitment to justice for all. Idaho needs a leader who will be a champion for human rights. I am that leader.

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You are minding your business, spending time with family, or reading a library book, or maybe you’re in your own bedroom doing absolutely nothing that is any of your neighbors’ business and a chill runs down your spine. You whip around to stare at the window. No one is there. But, you can’t shake that CREEPY feeling of being watched.

The good news is that you aren’t paranoid. The bad news is that Republican elected officials in your state government have their noses pressed against your windows.

They’re watching you.

They’re judging you.

They don’t approve of you.

These government folks think that being elected to office is a license to inflict indecent ideas of decency upon us. Just this week far-right lawmakers endorsed a proposal for a “traditional family values” month. Sounds innocuous enough. But this bill is not fighting for the civil rights of a persecuted minority. It’s the opposite of that.

Think about it. Whose “traditional” family values are we talking about here?

If you look at the track record of the far-right Legislature and the timid Republican governor who they push around, the tradition they like is what Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about in the Scarlet Letter. (If you haven’t checked out a copy from your local library, do it quick before it gets banned because it criticizes “traditional family values.”)

Meanwhile, the “traditional family values” folks want to expand their freedom to make bad choices for their children—such as refusing to vaccinate them—into their freedom to make bad choices for your kids too. (Welcome back, measles.) The bad medical decision du jour is a ban on gender-affirming care for state employees, public hospitals, and Medicaid plans.

Put another way, the far-right legislators are working to outlaw what transgender people describe as life-saving care because they feel like transgender people threaten “traditional family values.” (Basically, it’s witch-burning without any of the fire and smoke.)

You know, the Idaho House of Representatives (or the senate, or the governor’s office) doesn’t look remotely like “The People’s House” these days. The way they lurk around our windows and creep into our private lives, I think of them more as “The Peepers’ House.”

It’s past time for them to go home.

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But, do you blame anyone who shops around for a different airplane to fly on?

It would be strange if people didn’t worry about the airplanes they travel on. I do find it strange that this sensible self-preservation is absent from the political parts of our lives.

The Idaho Legislature is openly hostile to the health and well-being of regular Idahoans:

• The Legislature could save homeowners millions of dollars in property taxes; they choose to cut taxes for the state’s richest folks.
• They could replace unsafe schools; they prefer to spend that money on religious and private schools.
• They could take so many steps to improve health outcomes; they criminalize doctors so more than one-fifth of Idaho obstetricians left Idaho last year.
• They could make Idaho a welcoming place for all people; they chose to bully transgender children and demonize LGBTQ folks.

After that panel flew off in January, Boeing found some other issues and is working to fix them. They are trying to fix their problems.

Unlike Boeing, Idaho’s GOP politicians are doubling down on their shoddy work. Unfortunately, too many Idahoans still have not connected GOP leadership to a loss of services–and lives–in Idaho. And, without a great push from the public, the GOP is going the opposite direction. One legislator has a bill to make it harder for people to get absentee ballots.

I don’t know about you but I don’t trust a cook who won’t eat her own cooking; just like I don’t trust a politician who makes it harder for me to vote.

Bluntly, the wrong people are in office and we are suffering dire consequences. I, for one, am doing all I can to reach out to Idahoans and talk about the issues. Right now, Idaho GOP leaders are making a mess. We are already suffering because of it.

We need to be smart and stop this ride before it can crash.

The post Crash appeared first on Terri Pickens for Idaho Governor.

I admit it. I enjoyed the Super Bowl’s spicy pre-game storyline about the romance between Taylor Swift and Kansas City tight-end Travis Kelce. In the hands of PR pros, the super-ordinary act of two people dating became kindling for super-extraordinary conspiracy theories. Did you know one theory claimed that the Swift-Kelce matchup was part of some shadowy globalist cabal plan to re-elect President Biden?

Mwah-ha-ha-ha! Sceery!

Don’t get me wrong, I thought the Swift-Kelce obsession was ridiculous. But I bet it engaged new viewers. And that’s what Idaho needs, “new viewers.” If we could get NEW people watching Idaho politics, at the very least, we’d have better accountability for politicians.

So, we need to promote  “clickable” political moments. We need to drive excitement for each unpredictable political season and cast of wild and wooly characters. Remember, the Super Bowl was never remotely about Swift-Kelce. But during the game, the camera landed repeatedly on Swift and her celeb besties.

That camera angle wasn’t for football fans—it was for a “new” audience.

We have plenty to work with. Look at Rep. Heather Scott for instance. She’s a bottomless pit full of fascinating ideas! Take her offering last week: a bill to outlaw feeding people to people … without their consent.

Sure. Our first impulse is to cringe, knowing this is one more far-right clown show to scare away businesses and people (aka “Heather snacks”). But let’s face it, that kind of super-wacky idea gets everyone’s attention. My middle school kid heard all about that cannibal bill at school. He couldn’t tell you a thing about how many broken bridges will stay broken for another year.

I know. It feels a little like giving up. But why let places like the Idaho Freedom Foundation be the only ones to benefit from dysfunctional government and craven politicians? And it’s not like we will make our state’s most powerful political party become any LESS serious. The Republicans will not suddenly have worse leadership than Dorothy Moon. And Gov. Little is already quaking at the softest voice of reproval from the likes of Moon and Scott.

So let’s get all the bad ideas that Idaho’s far-right has and help publicize them well before the legislative session. Let’s get people excited about those ideas! Let’s get them watching the Legislature to see if it’s really as bad as it sounds.

Just maybe “new” people—people who haven’t gotten used to the annual slate of super-bad bills in Boise—will vote out some of these super-bad politicians.

The post Idaho’s Super Bad Political Bowl appeared first on Terri Pickens for Idaho Governor.

The Legislature hasn’t changed so the same meanness is back. It’s actually worse. Powerful lawmakers have expanded their attack on powerless kids by working to make life easier for Idaho’s most reviled bullies–those who simply attack kids because they can.

This year’s attack on transgender kids comes by trying to change the words in Idaho code regarding “sex” and “gender” status. These anti-kid politicians use this perverse platform to stoke a base that is fueled with disinformation and inflamed with fear.  With the failure of their attacks on our kids in the courts, which have routinely upheld trans kids’ rights of due process, equal protection, and community status, now our GOP colleagues are wasting more time and energy trying to define identity.  I have an idea, how about they just leave it be and let our kids live without bullying and constant attacks by our government.

As a parent, and a friend of transgender kids, I won’t just stand by and watch this bullying. Real lives are at stake. Real consequences.

My daughter came out at age 11.  I found out through her counselor, who was required by law to disclose to me that my daughter was self-harming and suicidal.  She was suicidal because the person she saw in the mirror, the person she felt like inside, was not the identity that society had placed upon her.

Every time one of these disgraceful bills gets a hearing, the souls of the most vulnerable group of people in Idaho, our transgender youth, take a beating.

I know a mother who will never again hug her child again because he didn’t feel comfortable in his own skin, and he took his own life. 

 Shouldn’t our laws try to save kids’ lives? At least, do no harm? 

Instead of showing compassion, this same GOP Legislature is entertaining proposals that make it harder to prosecute domestic terrorists, allowing more guns in schools, and allowing lawsuits against librarians. I believe it’s no coincidence that hate groups such as these frequently attack LGBTQia community members.

As Idaho Governor, I won’t let the Legislature bully kids. I will stand up to hate groups.  And I will make sure that one message is received loud and clear, the government must stay out of our doctor’s offices, our bathrooms, our libraries, and our bedrooms. For the party of alleged “small government”, Idaho’s present GOP, the Governor included, sure wants to regulate and govern everything we do. That’s why a vote for me will be a vote for your fundamental freedoms.

The post Idaho Has a Problem With Bullies in Power appeared first on Terri Pickens for Idaho Governor.

This isn’t fearmongering. It’s happening now, in real-time. Just this month, an Ohio woman had her fate in the hands of a grand jury. The 34-year-old was charged with a felony after she miscarried a 22-week-old, unviable fetus in her home.

This happens, a miscarriage. It happens often. But we’ve lived in a society that, generally, has had the decency to stay out of it. We’ve agreed that this was a woman’s private matter. No decent person would consider adding pain to what may already be a traumatic situation.

Not now. Not in Idaho. Not anymore.

Idaho Republican Chair Dorothy Moon, and like-minded tyrants, are waging a perverse war on American democracy. Among the early casualties is basic decency. Make no mistake, these people are winning battle after battle in Idaho. And their success has to do with their opposition’s weakness. That opposition should be Idaho Gov. Brad Little. Unfortunately,  Moon and her unelected and unlikeable minions scare the Governor out of his boots.

For years, I have traveled Idaho and met folks in dozens of towns and cities. When they tell me what they want from their leaders, almost everyone demands a government that balances staying out of our private lives with providing vital services like roads, bridges, schools, and internet connectivity.
No one asks for politicians to attack women and families. 

No one asks for their Government to meddle in medical decisions. 

No one asks for less freedom and more politics. 

No one asks for innovative ways to make laws crueler. 

No one asks for Dorothy Moon to be a shadow governor.

Clearly, there’s a weird, mean group of anti-life people who Moon and her compatriots conspire with. Ever since they captured the Idaho GOP Party, Gov. Little barely fusses when they attack liberty after liberty.

So here we are. We have a Legislature poised to make murderers of women who dare declare sovereignty over their own bodies. We have unlikeable, unkind, and unpopular politicians who have made Idaho a dangerous place for women. If they win, Idaho will be more dangerous tomorrow.

Today, Moon and her allies are finding success in their crusade against women.

I intend to change that when I am elected Governor. A vote for me is a vote against tyranny. A vote for me is a vote for the freedom that we all want and we all deserve.

The post We Must Drop Politicians Who Make Idaho Dangerous for Women appeared first on Terri Pickens for Idaho Governor.

I’m not asking, “who is Brad Little?”. Everyone knows who he is because he hung around the Capitol for two decades waiting for Butch Otter to retire. What I want to know is who I am really running against for governor.

After Brad Little’s State of State speech, I am pretty sure the real decision-makers are not elected by the public at all: Republican Chair Dorothy Moon and Idaho Freedom Foundation head Ron Nate.

Mr. Little has proposed fixing bridges, fixing schools, and running the internet to rural Idaho. (I am, of course, all for that). But a real leader–one who has been a top Idaho politician since the last century–would have accomplished those things already. In his speech, Mr. Little admitted that he has let problems fester so badly that raw sewage now runs beneath one Idaho school cafeteria. That’s a problem that a responsible true leader would never, ever, let happen in the first place. It’s beyond appalling–it’s unforgivable.

But it’s not just his feckless leadership that tells us Mr. Little is not our real governor; it’s the meanness.

Mr. Little bragged about using the Government to persecute a group that is the most powerless, most frightened, most bullied, and smallest in number in the state: transgender kids. That’s Dorothy Moon for sure.

Mr. Little also proposed cutting Health and Welfare to pay for schools. That just creates more problems. Cut today and to hell with tomorrow: that’s the kind of budgeting that made Ron Nate and the Idaho Freedom Foundation famous.

And of course, Mr. Little’s promise to fight for obscene anti-abortion laws that make Idaho the deadliest state in the nation for a woman is clearly the work of governors Moon and Nate.

One thing Mr. Little said that I agree with: We can do better.

The post Terri’s Response to the 2024 State of the State appeared first on Terri Pickens for Idaho Governor.

I knew I could be a rational voice in the Capitol. I could stop the chaos. I could stand up to extremists. My values of honesty, fairness, and courage would guide me.

Now, I am running against House Speaker Scott Bedke. He eked out a 51% primary win over a deeply flawed opponent. Mr. Bedke is unpopular because he spent 20 years ignoring the public’s needs while lavishing tax breaks on his corporate backers. He let a fierce desire for power guide him. And he let extremists takeover the House to hang onto that power.

A Lewiston Tribune opinion, “On Bedke’s Watch, Idaho’s House Burned,” described it this way:

“Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Terri Pickens Manweiler raised a salient point Friday during a statewide televised debate with her GOP rival, House Speaker Scott Bedke.

On Bedke’s decade-long watch, the Idaho House devolved into even more extremism. How is he not responsible for that? And why would that recommend him for a promotion?

“My opponent sat back in the House with his gavel and stayed silent while the minority of extremists became the loudest voice in the Legislature,” Pickens Manweiler said. “And he thinks that’s earned him the gavel in the Senate. It has not.”

The House speaker is without equal in the Legislature. The various committee chairmen and chairwomen serve at his pleasure. He controls his own panel, the House Ways and Means Committee, where he can launch or kill any bill he pleases.“

I recently read a quote, attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, that describes the difference between the two of us:

         “Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

I am here today as the best choice for Lieutenant Governor. I have the right experience, the right temperament, and I have a powerful love for this state and the people here.

I know what’s right. I do what’s right.

If you haven’t voted already, I ask for your vote this Tuesday. For those who have already voted for me, I am deeply grateful. And thank you so much for allowing me the great honor of running to be Idaho’s next Lieutenant Governor.

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